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When I first heard The Mind described, it didn't make sense. This little German game has players cooperate to play cards from their hands in ascending order, without talking—and that’s about it. The concept sounds farcical in its simplicity, particularly when paired with the amount of furor the game has generated.

Then I played the thing, and it wouldn't get out of my head.

Originally published by Nürnberger-Spielkarten-Verlag, The Mind has now been brought to North America by Pandasaurus Games. It was nominated for the prestigious Spiel des Jahres award (though it was beaten by Azul) and has started a groundswell of both praise and consternation. How can such a simple game generate so much attention?

Cult of The Mind

The community that has fallen for this design tends to describe The Mind with a sense of mystique and wonder. The game, they say, breeds a feeling of collective action that’s almost cult-like—which is why The Mind is often described as an “experience” as opposed to a game.

Game details

That’s not to say this isn't a game. Players are dealt out a random assortment of cards from a deck numbered 1 to 100. Everyone must then play their cards in ascending order to a joint pile on the table. Whoever has the lowest card in the group must play theirs first, followed by the person holding the next lowest, etc.

The Mind's magic lies in how it limits communication. Players are not allowed to talk and must instead utilize non-verbal cues (like delayed action) as their primary tools. So if you're dealt the three, you slowly slide the card face-down towards the middle of the table with your eyes wide as you stare down your peers. You want to push the card forward just cautiously enough to allow someone with a one or two to play first. If you sit there quietly with that three in your hand for too long, the player with the 10 may incorrectly assume she has the lowest value card and toss that out to the pile.

When a card is played out of order, players immediately discard those cards and the group loses a life. Play escalates round to round as each level has more cards dealt to the participants. The stakes increase. The difficulty can be staggering, which provides an otherworldly sense of satisfaction if you eventually eke out a win. When that happens, you’ll be nursing a bruised palm from a dozen high-fives, then hopping up on adrenaline for the rest of the evening.

The Mind is one of the most intensely clever exercises in simplicity I’ve seen. It brings a single mechanism to the table and offers a few restrictions that result in a fantastic trick. Very few games rely so completely on non-verbal communication, and that's exactly where this title lives and dies.

In many ways, the experience is similar to the classic Ouija board. It offers a situation ripe for exploitation and allows players to do the heavy lifting and meet it more than halfway. This framework can produce euphoric moments shared between everyone at the table. That sense of exhilarating intoxication is powerful—and many tabletop games never achieve it.

Take the following common situation: you’re slowly nudging a card towards the center when out of the corner of your eye, you spot one of your mates parroting you. As you both approach the terminus of open table space, a decision must be made. One of you must play your card first. You sit there a moment in indecision, staring each other in the eyes with a sense of intensity. Your brow furrows and that vein above your eyebrow comes to life. Then you go for it.

Before your 31 fully settles upon the pile, your chum slams down the 32 on top of it and every cell in your brain is electric. The table cheers and your heart swells. The game is full of these moments as each flip of the card is a distilled instance of drama. There’s a reason the cult of The Mind is vast and vocal.

Charlie Theel

Can you play all these numbers, cooperatively, in order?

The game's increasingly difficult levels.

It’s not a game?

As profound as this experience can be for many, an equally large population simply finds it empty. If you aren’t invested in the concept and don’t work to find the brilliance, it will never manifest. For such players, The Mind is simply a dull game devoid of charisma. Those drinking the Kool-Aid appear ludicrous.

Offering ammunition for this argument is the game's fragile relationship with fickleness. Random variability can unfortunately have a large impact on the difficulty. For instance, if your group gets cards 91, 92, 94, and 96—all of them spread among four players—good luck playing those in perfect rhythm.

Increasing the burden for the non-believers is the sheer amount of disconnect that can potentially be felt. If you’re not hitting on that magnetic emotional connection with the other players, then it will feel as if the game is dominated by downtime. You’ll sit, waiting for your turn, tossing out a few cards at random points in the game.

It’s nearly impossible to predict where you will land until you try the game; my own skepticism was shattered almost immediately. The Mind suggestively pushes its telepathic narrative by having players place their hands side by side to mind meld before play begins. These little touches sound ludicrous upon first contact, but you might be the one insisting everyone sync up before the second round begins.

As you push through the levels and the difficulty explodes, your body will be eaten by tension. The game strings you along with just enough support to keep you going and intensely focused. When that last “life” is lost and the collective groan dissipates into silence, it will be only a moment before someone’s reaching for the deck and beginning to shuffle again.

The Mind is one of those games that can drive its hooks into the deeper recesses of your brain. It might keep you up all night trying to pierce its metaphysical curtain—or, you know, it'll have you shaking your head as you toss it into the waste bin, trying to make sense of all these lunatics.

It may well be a rather good psychometric test for particular personality types.

But I see a dreadful future for all the closet loners out there....

The "team player" fanaticism of most corporations will make it a requirement that you play and 'get' and even enjoy 'The Mind'. There will be players who are in fact evil loners polluting the corporate-conciousness with their unmindfulness.

This seems like the sort of game that is fascinating to a person who does't actually interact with other people all that much.

You aren't supposed to communicate what your cards are, but what do you think the pauses are before playing? They're hints as to the relative value of your card. Thus the mystique seems to be that humans can't obey those rules but think they are and are astounded that we know how to pick up on common body language.

About the only thing I would find interesting about this would be to compare a group of people from entirely different geographical and cultural backgrounds compared to people who have similar upbringings. But plenty of psych experiments have done that exact sort of thing already.

It sounds like there is a very simple way to play this game: Count seconds in your head, up from the number on the table, and play your card when you reach the number on that card. Playing a perfect game will take at most 100 seconds. The game then becomes a group exercise in keeping pace with each other. Would having a ticking clock in the room count as cheating?

I think I'd enjoy playing this game but apparently not with Ars Technica readers. This is one of the most disheartening threads I've ever seen with everyone being negative about it for "I am too smart for this game" reasons.

I think I'd enjoy playing this game but apparently not with Ars Technica readers. This is one of the most disheartening threads I've ever seen with everyone being negative about it for "I am too smart for this game" reasons.

I'd really have to see the rules before judging, personally. No verbal communication leaves a TON of ways for people to game the hell out of this one, to the point where it indeed wouldn't be a game anymore, but more of a shared experience a group might want to partake in.

The Target exclusive "good" art version is on sale for the rest of the day (8/4). $12.99 plus 10% off with code GENCON. Link to The Game @ Target Then you too can find out if The Game is in fact a game.

Am I missing something? The article is about "The Mind" game, not "The Game"..

In improv training, there’s a similar group excercise, in which everyone stands in a circle looking down on the floor (or closing their eyes). The group has to manage to count up to a pre-determined number, but only one person is permitted to speak at a time. If two people start talking at the same time – which happens easier than one might think – you have to start over again. Since you don’t have any direct contact with the others, you have to develop a kind of feel for when they’re likely to say something.

It usually takes a few attempts until people even get to 10, but when you do manage, it’s definitely a great feeling. It’s a really good excercise for learning how to work together as a group. Sure, a group could easily figure out a way to cheat (e.g., always count clockwise), but since it’s about the common experience, they’d only cheat themselves by missing out on it.

I could see people who like that kind of stuff having a great time with this game, too, but it definitely seems like you need the right kind of group to enjoy it.

It sounds like there is a very simple way to play this game: Count seconds in your head, up from the number on the table, and play your card when you reach the number on that card. Playing a perfect game will take at most 100 seconds. The game then becomes a group exercise in keeping pace with each other. Would having a ticking clock in the room count as cheating?

The Target exclusive "good" art version is on sale for the rest of the day (8/4). $12.99 plus 10% off with code GENCON. Link to The Game @ Target Then you too can find out if The Game is in fact a game.

Am I missing something? The article is about "The Mind" game, not "The Game"..

Hadn't had my coffee yet, and horribly named card games from IDW/Panasurus about playing numbered cards in order seem to be multiplying. Shockingly both were Spiel des Jarhes nominees too. If the no communication thing about The Mind bothers you, The Game allows limited communication.

In improv training, there’s a similar group excercise, in which everyone stands in a circle looking down on the floor (or closing their eyes). The group has to manage to count up to a pre-determined number, but only one person is permitted to speak at a time, and since you don’t have any direct contact with the others, you have to develop a kind of feel for when they’re likely to say something.

It usually takes a few attempts until people even get to 10, but when you do manage, it’s definitely a great feeling. It’s a really good excercise for learning how to work together as a group. Sure, a group could easily figure out a way to cheat (e.g., always count clockwise), but since it’s about the common experience, they’d only cheat themselves by missing out on it.

I could see people who like that kind of stuff having a great time with this game, too, but it definitely seems like you need the right kind of group to enjoy it.

exactly, you can devise methods of cheating but you're only ruining the fun for yourself. as with any game.

It sounds like there is a very simple way to play this game: Count seconds in your head, up from the number on the table, and play your card when you reach the number on that card. Playing a perfect game will take at most 100 seconds. The game then becomes a group exercise in keeping pace with each other. Would having a ticking clock in the room count as cheating?

It sounds like there is a very simple way to play this game: Count seconds in your head, up from the number on the table, and play your card when you reach the number on that card. Playing a perfect game will take at most 100 seconds. The game then becomes a group exercise in keeping pace with each other. Would having a ticking clock in the room count as cheating?

One of you must play your card first. You sit there a moment in indecision, staring each other in the eyes with a sense of intensity. Your brow furrows and that vein above your eyebrow comes to life. Then you go for it.

Before your 31 fully settles upon the pile, your chum slams down the 32 on top of it and every cell in your brain is electric. The table cheers and your heart swells. The game is full of these moments as each flip of the card is a distilled instance of drama. There’s a reason the cult of The Mind is vast and vocal.

So luck.

You didn't know he had a 32+ and he didn't know that you didn't have a 33+. If you luck out you can say your zen saved the day.

The other likely scenario is you "go for it". He shows a 29 and the team loses a life.

This seems like the sort of game that is fascinating to a person who does't actually interact with other people all that much.

You aren't supposed to communicate what your cards are, but what do you think the pauses are before playing? They're hints as to the relative value of your card. Thus the mystique seems to be that humans can't obey those rules but think they are and are astounded that we know how to pick up on common body language.

About the only thing I would find interesting about this would be to compare a group of people from entirely different geographical and cultural backgrounds compared to people who have similar upbringings. But plenty of psych experiments have done that exact sort of thing already.

Perhaps that's what motivated the designer; but as a hypothetical player I had pretty much the opposite reaction:

I can't think of a single instance where I thought "Wow, this sure would be more fun if communication were even more heavily dependent on indirect channels than it usually is"; and the idea of sitting around a table with that-person-who-gets-squirmy-and-just-oozes-affective-perturbation-when-they-can't-talk; and the two who are super pumped about their mutual recognition of interaction inscrutable to anyone else, and so on is physically uncomfortable.

One of you must play your card first. You sit there a moment in indecision, staring each other in the eyes with a sense of intensity. Your brow furrows and that vein above your eyebrow comes to life. Then you go for it.

Before your 31 fully settles upon the pile, your chum slams down the 32 on top of it and every cell in your brain is electric. The table cheers and your heart swells. The game is full of these moments as each flip of the card is a distilled instance of drama. There’s a reason the cult of The Mind is vast and vocal.

So luck.

You didn't know he had a 32+ and he didn't know that you didn't have a 33+. If you luck out you can say your zen saved the day.

The other likely scenario is you "go for it". He shows a 29 and the team loses a life.

To me it sounds like reverse poker. In both games you don't know the other player's cards and they don't know yours. In poker you are allowed to talk, but since the other players are trying to mislead you, you can't trust what they say. Instead you go off non-verbal, involuntary body language cues. In this game, the other players aren't trying to mislead you but they aren't allowed to talk, so you are reduced to reading body language again.

I've not played this, but I doubt it's purely about luck any more than poker is. And if you think poker is purely about luck, I'd suggest you not play it for money.

One of you must play your card first. You sit there a moment in indecision, staring each other in the eyes with a sense of intensity. Your brow furrows and that vein above your eyebrow comes to life. Then you go for it.

Before your 31 fully settles upon the pile, your chum slams down the 32 on top of it and every cell in your brain is electric. The table cheers and your heart swells. The game is full of these moments as each flip of the card is a distilled instance of drama. There’s a reason the cult of The Mind is vast and vocal.

So luck.

You didn't know he had a 32+ and he didn't know that you didn't have a 33+. If you luck out you can say your zen saved the day.

The other likely scenario is you "go for it". He shows a 29 and the team loses a life.

I’d rather compare it to something like Poker: A mix of luck and interpreting non-verbal cues. Obviously, it doesn’t have the strategic depth of Poker, and players are trying to work together instead of against each other, but I imagine that people who know each other well should do better than groups of random strangers.

This seems like the sort of game that is fascinating to a person who does't actually interact with other people all that much.

You aren't supposed to communicate what your cards are, but what do you think the pauses are before playing? They're hints as to the relative value of your card. Thus the mystique seems to be that humans can't obey those rules but think they are and are astounded that we know how to pick up on common body language.

About the only thing I would find interesting about this would be to compare a group of people from entirely different geographical and cultural backgrounds compared to people who have similar upbringings. But plenty of psych experiments have done that exact sort of thing already.

I have a friends group who would adore it, and a friends group that would abhor it.

Unsurprisingly, the same friends group that would love it prefers Fate to D&D, and RPing social situations to fights. The other group are hard-core min-maxers that love to ferret out the mechanics of a game, and honestly would rather just do Rolemaster.

I think I would like to try. I very seldom play board-games (or card games) - but occasionally we like to have a play once very 4 or 5 months or so with a few friends. And we tend to play very "simple" games that do not involve lots of set-up and lengthy rules explanation.

As I see it, it might be a bit similar (in the broadest sense) to Dixit, in spirit - while Dixit is verbal, you still trying to communicate without communicating.